Question 1

Beloved Osho,

What do you think of moses' ten commandments? do you have any commandments for us?

 

 

Moses is one of the most charismatic leaders that the world has known, but he is not a religious man. He is a lawgiver. But to be a law giver is one thing, and to be religious is totally different. He decides what is right, what is wrong for his people. But right and wrong are not eternal things. Something is right this moment, and the next moment it is not right. Something is right in one context, in another context it becomes just its opposite. Laws are dead. Once you have decided them, then they are fixed. They don't change with the context, with the situation, with the time. They cannot change, they are not living beings.

 

Moses guided his people out of slavery, gave them great hope for the future, inspired them, but he could not make them religious. Because he could not make them religious, he had to substitute religion with laws. Laws are a poor substitute for consciousness. But when consciousness is missing, there is nothing else to do except to give laws, and follow the laws.

 

Why could Moses not make his people religious? He himself was not a religious person. His encounter with God is nothing but an hallucination. God exists not, so those who have encountered God have encountered their own imagination. Wandering in the hot, burning, fiery desert for years; hungry, thirsty, his people dying, their hope dying -- there seems to be no end to this search for the promised land.

 

He goes to the mountains to think, to contemplate, to pray to God. He must have been in a hopeless situation. Now the people were asking -- and there was no answer -- they were asking, "Where is the promised land? It seems you don't have any idea where it is. You uprooted us. Of course we were slaves, but at least we were surviving. Now we are dying."

 

People choose slavery for the simple reason that if the alternative is death, then it is better to be a slave. At least you are alive and there is a possibility someday you may get out of the slavery. But when you are dead, the possibility disappears. So it is not wrong to choose slavery when it is an alternative to death.

 

Moses brought these people out of slavery, giving them all kinds of dreams, and slowly those dreams started turning into desert dust. Days went by, months went by, years went by, and people were dying as they had never seen people dying. Forty years he was wandering in the desert of the Middle East. In forty years, out of every four people, three had died. Three quarters of the original people were no longer there; and those who remained, you could not call them alive either. These forty years had been such a suffering that it would have been a lot better if they had died. They were skeletons.

 

Naturally, Moses was in a tremendous anguish, a great turmoil. He had not thought that this was going to happen. He was not deceiving his people; he was very sincere, his intention was good. There was no way to get these people out of Egyptian slavery unless they were given a great hope that pulled them out of slavery.

 

But this happens to all great leaders: when they succeed, then comes the moment of their failure. It happened in India. Mahatma Gandhi led the country for forty years and made the people believe, "When independence comes all your problems are solved. There will be no poverty, no suffering, no riots, no violence. These Hindu-Mohammedan riots in which thousands of people are killed, burned alive, are created by the British rulers." It was easy to dump it on the British rulers -- dump everything on the British rulers. You are suffering because you are in slavery. You are poor because they are exploiting you. You can never live a respectable life if you are under the shoes of the British Empire.

 

People believed him, just the same way as Jews had believed Moses. They followed him. The independence came... and that was the great moment of failure for Mahatma Gandhi, because it is not such a simple affair that just by getting rid of British rule all your problems are going to disappear.

 

Your problems are millions of years old. The British were in India for only three hundred years.

 

Before that you were poor, hungry, uneducated. In fact, the British Empire did everything to raise the standard of life in India. It introduced all kinds of technology, science, in every possible way. It introduced medicine, schools.... But nobody was going to thank them. Who is going to thank the person who is enslaving you? -- they were the cause of all the riots, of all the murders, of all the butchery.

 

So, people were waiting: "When the British go back, we will be living for the first time as human beings -- there will be no poverty, life will be a bed of roses." But life not only remained the same, it became worse, because the British rulers knew how to rule. In three hundred years they had created a system to control, to keep discipline. Now all that disappeared with them, and the people who came into power had no idea what power was. What to do with power? How to use it? And suddenly there was a tremendous outburst of violence such as India had never seen before, perhaps no other country has seen ever before.

 

Gandhi was shattered. Now the British were gone, but the violence was a million times more, because the British had a certain discipline, power, and they had managed the country for three hundred years. Now there was nobody; everybody was free to do whatsoever he wanted. Thousands of people were killed, burned; trains were burned, stopped and completely burned, and nobody was allowed to get out of the trains. Houses were set on fire. The whole country was in a mess. In Pakistan, the Hindus were being killed. In India, the Mohammedans were being killed. And the leaders were at a loss as to what to do. Gandhi himself said, "Now nobody listens to me." And he had been the absolute leader of the people for forty years. His voice was the voice of the country, and now he said, "Nobody listens to me. I have become a false coin -- useless."

 

He used to say, before India became independent, that he would like to live for one hundred and twenty-five years, because after independence there would be real life; right now, what was life? But as the country became independent, and the whole country was on fire -- violence everywhere, destruction everywhere... even his own followers, intimate followers, were no longer listening to him -- he said for the first time, "Now I don't want to live one hundred and twenty-five years." Perhaps when Nathuram Godse shot him, he felt relieved, because he was carrying a burden. He could not show his face to people; there was no answer.

 

The same was the situation facing Moses. He went into the mountains just to be out of the crowd, because they were continuously torturing him, asking him, "Where is the promised land? We don't see any promised land. Days pass, we don't come across an oasis. People are dying of thirst, and whenever we come across an oasis, it is not easy to get food either"... because they were all poor people, they had no money, they were slaves. They were not paid, and whatsoever they had brought... small things. That caravan of Moses is worth remembering. What had people carried with them? Somebody was bringing his donkey, somebody was bringing a cart, somebody was carrying two earthen pots, a few clothes.... There was nothing valuable. They had nothing. And on the way they sold whatsoever they had brought with them -- these small things they sold for bread.

 

Moses must have been in terrible pain. Nobody has thought about it. I have never come across a Jewish book pondering over the situation of Moses. He went into the mountains, not to meditate. That is a great luxury -- Moses could not afford it -- and that was not the time to meditate. He had gone just to avoid this crowd, and sit for a time to think out a plan. Something had to be done, otherwise he would be responsible for this whole race dying. And he had promised them....

 

And remember always, this is how the human mind works: when you start promising, you forget that there is a limit, don't exaggerate. Mind is very easily able to exaggerate. It enjoys exaggerating. It magnifies things both ways. Just a little pain and it makes so much fuss about it. Just a little suffering and it becomes the greatest suffering in the world. Just a little pleasure and you are on top of the whole world, as if nobody else knows what pleasure is. You fall in love with a woman and you think, "Never before has such a love happened, and never again is it going to happen. This is unique." This is happening everywhere, and everybody is thinking it: "This is unique!" Mind exaggerates everything, magnifies -- it is a magnifier -- and you believe it.

 

Moses' people were really in trouble. It was not a question of magnifying. And there was a limit to giving them consolation: "Wait just a little more -- we are coming closer, coming closer...." It seemed as if they were going farther and farther away; there seemed to be no signs of coming closer.

 

In this state of anguish, in the burning hot desert, on the mountain -- even hotter, because a desert mountain has no trees, no greenery -- Moses hallucinates. In such a state of mind anybody can hallucinate. He starts talking to God. His human mind finds no answer. This is a state of hallucination: with open eyes he is seeing a dream. And he believes that God has given him advice, ten commandments: "These are the ten rules. Go to your people and give these ten commandments. If they follow these ten commandments everything will be all right." His hallucination is not a religious experience. There is no God in the first place. Even if there is, he does not speak Hebrew. How did you start thinking that God is a Jew? If there is a God and he comes to know that you call him a Jew, do you think he will be happy? There is no God at all, so there is no problem.

 

It is not Moses alone who is hallucinating; other religious leaders -- of course, so-called religious leaders -- have done the same. He comes with great authority and tells his people, "God has given these ten commandments. If you live accordingly, fulfilling God's desire, then only are you going to find the promised land. But first you have to be capable of it, worthy of it."

 

Now, this is a good strategy. Neither can those poor people be worthy of fulfilling all those ten commandments, nor can they ask again, "Where is the promised land?" I don't think that he was being a politician, but who knows -- it is good political strategy to give people a certain idea: "You fulfill it; if you don't fulfill it, then you are responsible, then you cannot blame me. I had told you before that these ten commandments have to be fulfilled."

 

And those ten commandments cannot be fulfilled by any natural human being.

 

The very structure is such that you will find it going against your natural instincts, your biology, your physiology, your psychology. So rather than blaming the leader, you will start feeling guilty, that it is because of you the promised land is not being reached.

 

I do not think that Moses was at all a religious man. He was a great revolutionary, and certainly a charismatic leader, not of an ordinary caliber, superb. It is not easy to keep people wandering in the desert for forty years and still keep their hope alive. This was a great strategy, knowingly or unknowingly. My feeling is that it was unknowingly. He certainly had the feeling that God had spoken to him, that he had seen God, that these ten commandments were from him. And by giving these commandments to the Jews, God had proved again that Jews are the chosen people of God.

 

You ask me, have I any commandments for you?

 

First: The very word commandment, to me, is ugly. It is okay for a commander in the army to give commandments. The very word means that you have to follow it. There is no question to be raised, a commandment cannot be doubted. And a commandment from God -- you have to fulfill it. And a commandment from God gives Moses the authority to keep these people quiet, disciplined, under his rule.

 

I am not a commander, and I don't want anybody to be under my authority. I do not represent any God whatsoever -- Jew, Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian. I am nobody's representative. I simply represent myself. And any authority that I have is my own.

 

I can say to you authoritatively what my experience is, but I cannot be authoritative with you. Note the difference: whatsoever I say, I say with the authority of my own experience. But I am not being authoritative with you. If I say, "Believe me" -- then I start becoming authoritative with you. "Don't doubt me.... If you believe, then paradise is yours. If you doubt, you fall in hell." I do not promise you any heaven. I do not make you afraid of any hell. Yes, my words have an intrinsic authority, but they are not authoritative. They don't enslave you.

 

So of course I cannot give you any commandments. That would be insulting you, that would be humiliating you. That would be taking your integrity, your freedom, your responsibility from you. No, I cannot commit such a criminal act.

 

I can request you, I can invite you, to share with me my experience. I can become the host for you and you can be the guest. It is an invitation, a welcome -- but it is not a commandment.

 

What requests can I make of you? It will look a little strange because Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Krishna, Mahavira, Buddha -- nobody requests you. They all have orders for you: "Follow, or fall into hell." They don't give you any chance even to think. They reduce your very existence, your very being, to an object. They reduce you, just like a number in the army. They don't respect your individuality. Hence I see something irreligious in all those people. They are special; somebody is special because he has seen God with his own eyes.... Now, in what way can you be equal to him? On what right can you question him? He has seen God himself, talked to him. He has brought the message to you; he is the messenger.

 

Somebody is the only begotten son: now, what can you do about it? You cannot be equal to Jesus. All that you can do is to follow, to imitate, to be a psychological slave, which is a far more dangerous slavery than any other. Economic slavery is nothing compared to psychological slavery.

 

I am reminded of Diogenes. I love this fellow Diogenes for the simple reason that he does not claim any authority from God. He does not give any orders and commandments and disciplines to others. He used to live naked -- not for any religious reasons, not to get to heaven; he was not concerned about heaven and hell at all. He lived naked, because, he said, "That's how I was born. Nature wants me to be this way. Why should I be otherwise? I am going to be just natural."

 

One day it happened, he was just going to the river. He used to carry, up to that time, a begging bowl which he used to collect food or keep water. He was running towards the river -- he was thirsty -- and just by his side a dog came running and reached the river before him and started drinking water. Diogenes said, "Great. This dog is far more independent than me." He threw the begging bowl into the river and said to the dog, "Master, you have really shown me the way. I was carrying that weight unnecessarily."

 

He was caught by a few thieves -- because in those days people were caught and sold as slaves, and he looked very promising. He was very healthy and had a certain personality. They were certain that they would get good money if they could keep hold of him. They were three; he was alone, but they were not certain that even three would be able to keep hold of him. He might kill all three. So they followed him, afraid whether to try or just drop the idea because he seemed to be dangerous. And who knows, he might be mad, because he was walking naked and enjoying so much, and he had nothing to enjoy.

 

Diogenes was listening to what they were thinking and talking about, and he said, "Don't be worried. You want to steal me? You want to sell me in the marketplace?"

 

They were shocked. They said, "Now there is trouble. If we say yes, he is going to jump on us."

 

But Diogenes said, "Don't be afraid. I am going myself to the market. You can come with me, you can sell me. One thing I know: nobody can make me a slave. So you will get money, and you will be happy. And I know for certain that nobody can make me a slave, so why should I be worried about it? You just come along with me."

 

They could not even say, "We don't want to come along," because this man seemed to be so strange: he might force them to come along with him. So they said, "Okay, if you say so, then we will come along." He was walking ahead and they were behind him; he was looking like an emperor and they were looking like the slaves.

 

When they reached the slave market he stood up on the platform where slaves used to be put so people could see from all sides, to measure them, weigh them, look at their teeth -- just the way you purchase a horse or a bull, that's how -- they could see your muscles, whether you were strong or weak, old or young. But these three thieves could not say to Diogenes, "Please stand on the platform." He jumped up himself, and what he said from the platform is something to be remembered. He said, "Listen!" -- so loudly that the whole market became silent, seeing a naked man and so healthy, so beautiful, so proportionate. They had never seen such a slave.

 

There was great silence in the whole market, all the people gathered there, and Diogenes said, "For the first time a master is for sale. Any slave among you can purchase a master. But remember, you are purchasing a master." Those three thieves were hiding in the crowd because they thought the crowd might become angry, and they might be caught: "You have brought this man here."

 

But one rich man fell in love... just the idea. This man was saying, "A master is for sale; any slave can purchase him." This rich man asked, "Who owns you?"

 

Diogenes said, "Of course I own myself, but I have promised three thieves, so the money will go to them. They are hiding there. They have followed me. Really I have forced them to come here -- they were trying to escape in the middle of the journey, and just now they are trying to disappear in the crowd. They are the three. You will have to give the money to these people. And I will come with you. As far as ownership is concerned, I own myself and nobody can own me."

 

The rich man said, "That's what has appealed to me. I am not taking you as a slave, I am accepting you as a master. You just come with me. Just your being in my house, your presence, is enough." The thieves were paid. Diogenes went in the chariot of the rich man, and the rich man certainly behaved as if he was the slave and Diogenes was the master.

 

There is a certain phenomenon: if you are really independent psychologically, nobody can make you a slave. Yes, you can be killed, but you cannot be made a slave.

 

And all these people who have been giving commandments, disciplines, showing you the way to live, what to eat, what to wear, what to do, what not to do -- all these people are in some way trying to make you a psychological slave. I cannot call these people religious.

 

To me religion begins with psychological freedom.

 

I cannot give you commandments, but I can give you a few requests. Nobody has done it before, so it may look a little outlandish, but what can I do? I can give you a few invitations.

 

My first request or invitation is: Don't let your doubt die.

 

That is the most precious thing you have got, because it is doubt that one day is going to help you discover the truth.

 

And all these people say, "Believe!" Their first effort is to destroy your doubt. Start with faith, because if you don't start with faith on each step you will raise questions. Hence I would like it to be my first request to you: doubt until you discover. Do not believe until you come to know yourself. Once you believe, you will never be able to know on your own. Belief is poison, the most dangerous poison there is; because it kills your doubt. It kills your inquiry. It takes away from you your most precious instrument.

 

Whatsoever science has achieved in three hundred years is through doubt. And in ten thousand years, religion has achieved nothing because of its belief. You can see, anybody who has eyes can see, that in three hundred years science has achieved so much, in spite of all the hindrances created by the religious people. What has been the basic power of science? It was doubt.

 

Doubt, and go on doubting until you come to a point that you cannot doubt anymore. And you cannot doubt anymore only when you come to know something on your own. Then there is no question of doubt, there is no way to doubt. So this is my first request.

 

My second request: Never imitate.

 

The mind is an imitator, because imitation is very easy. To be someone is very difficult. To become someone is very easy -- all that you need is to be a hypocrite, which is not much of a problem. Deep down you remain the same, but on the surface you go on painting yourself according to some image.

 

The Christian is trying to become like Christ -- that's what the word Christian means. You would love to be like Christ. You are on the way, maybe far away, but moving slowly. A Christian means a person trying slowly to become a Christ, a Mohammedan means a person trying to become Mohammed. But unfortunately this is not possible; this is not in the very nature of the universe. It only creates unique beings. It has no idea at all of carbon copies, duplicators, cyclostyled material; existence has no idea -- just the original. And each individual is so unique and original that if he tries to become Christ, he is committing suicide. If he tries to become a Buddha, he is committing suicide.

 

So the second request is: Don't imitate. If you want to know who you are, please avoid imitation, that's a way of avoiding knowing yourself

 

I have always loved one of Friedrich Nietzsche's statements, and in many different contexts I have found it mysteriously true -- again in this reference. Nietzsche says, "The first and the last Christian died two thousand years ago, on the cross." The first and the last.... Now, all others are just dodos. They are trying in every way to be Christians, and it is not possible at all. It is not allowed by existence and its laws.

 

You cannot change the universal laws.

 

You can only be yourself, and nothing else.

 

And it is beautiful to be yourself.

 

Anything original has beauty, freshness, fragrance, aliveness. Anything that is imitated is dead, dull, phony, plastic. You can pretend, but whom are you deceiving? Except yourself you are not deceiving anybody. And what is the point of deceiving? What are you going to gain?

 

These same religious people, Moses, Mahavira, Buddha -- these same religious people have been telling you, if you imitate exactly along the lines prescribed by them you will attain to great pleasure in heaven, in paradise. They have all been somehow reinforcing your greed, lust. They talk of desirelessness -- and for what? Can you see the contradiction of all these religions? They say, "Drop desiring, so that you can attain to paradise." And what is this, if not desiring? This is the greatest desire. What other desires are you dropping for it? Wearing beautiful clothes -- drop it. Having a beautiful house -- drop it. Eating good food -- drop it. These are desires. These small things... and what are you going to gain in return? The whole paradise is yours.

 

These people are not teaching you desirelessness. On the contrary, they are giving you a great desire as a bargain -- if you can drop your small stupid desires. And because of that great desire you are ready to imitate, because that's the only way to reach there. You are ready to imitate. Thousands of people are living, even today, along the guidelines of Buddha. They may have been good for Gautam Buddha, he may have enjoyed it; I have no quarrel about it. But he was not imitating anybody; that you don't see at all. Is Christ trying to imitate anybody? If you have just a little intelligence, a very little intelligence, that will do; it is not that you need genius to understand the simple fact. Whom has Christ imitated? Whom has Buddha imitated? Whom has Lao Tzu imitated? Nobody. That's why they have flowered. But you are imitating.

 

The first thing to learn is that nonimitation is one of the fundamentals of religious life. Don't be a Christian and don't be a Mohammedan and don't be a Hindu -- so that you can discover who you are. Before discovering, you start covering yourself with all kinds of labels, and then you go on reading those labels, and thinking this is you -- you are a Mohammedan, you are a Christian.... And those are labels glued upon you by yourself or by your parents, by your well-wishers. They are all your enemies. Whosoever tries to distract you from your being is your enemy.

 

This is my definition: whosoever helps you to remain -- determinedly, whatsoever the cost, whatever the consequence -- to remain yourself, he is your friend.

 

I am not a messiah and I am not a prophet. I am only a friend, and a friend cannot do what you are asking me to do. What commandments can I give you? No, none. I cannot tell you what to do and what not to do. I can only explain to you that either you can be yourself or you can try and pretend to be somebody else. That trying and pretending is easier, because you are just acting.

 

Now, in this film of Richard Attenborough's, "Gandhi," the man who was acting as Gandhi -- what do you think? He is doing perfectly well; he looks like Gandhi. Attenborough had to go around the world to find a man who looked like Gandhi. It was very difficult, and this man simply walked into his office and he said, "What! I have been searching all over...." He was just a poor actor in some small drama company. He looks like Gandhi, he wears clothes like Gandhi, he walks like Gandhi, he talks like Gandhi: what more do you want? But do you think he has become Gandhi? Sometimes he can manage even to be better than Gandhi, because Gandhi was doing it for the first time, he is doing it for the second time. He can drop all the mistakes and faults. He can improve upon it. It has happened....

 

Charlie Chaplin's friends, on his fiftieth birthday, had a special arrangement to celebrate. All over England people were invited to play the part of Charlie Chaplin. From villages they were chosen. Then there was a competition on another level, the district; then there was another competition, higher. And then the final competition was in London. Charlie Chaplin was a joker, and he said, "This is a good time to play a joke." So by the back door he entered the competition. But the joke turned upon him -- he came second! Somebody else came first. Judges were not aware that Charlie Chaplin himself was playing; it became known only later on that he had come second -- as Charlie Chaplin. Somebody else had gone farther in being Charlie Chaplin.

 

So it is possible that a Christian may go a little ahead of Christ, a Buddhist may go a little ahead of Buddha. But it is still acting, you are only doing it; it is not your being. Keep the distance between being and doing. You can do things against your being, there is no problem. The being is very patient, very calm and quiet; it won't disturb you. If you want to play somebody else's role, it will allow you.

 

Now, this man who came better than Charlie Chaplin still knows that he is not Charlie Chaplin. His being is his being; it was just acting. And when he discovered that he had gone farther in being Charlie Chaplin than Charlie Chaplin himself he could not believe it. He apologized to Charlie Chaplin, "Forgive me, I had no idea that you were in the competition."

 

Charlie Chaplin said, "I was thinking to play a joke, but I became a laughingstock myself. But you have revealed a great truth, that acting and being are two separate things."

 

But in ordinary life, you are not playing a role of being a Christian, you start thinking you are a Christian. Slowly, slowly, slowly, conditioned by the society, by the parents, by the education, you become a Christian. You completely forget that you were not born as a Christian. And you completely forget what your potential is. You have moved away in a direction which may not have been your potential. You have gone far away; you will have to come back.

 

When I say this to people, it hurts. But I cannot do it in any other way. It is going to hurt. You have gone miles away in being a Christian; you have to come back miles, and it is going to be a hard task. And unless you come back to the point from where you deviated, you will never be able to discover yourself -- and there is all that has to be discovered.

 

My third request is: Beware of knowledge.

 

It is so cheap to become knowledgeable. Scriptures are there, libraries are there, universities are there; it is so easy to become knowledgeable. And once you become knowledgeable you are in a very sensitive space, because the ego would like to believe that this is your knowledge -- not only knowledgeability, it is your wisdom. The ego would like to change knowledge into wisdom. You will start believing that you know.

 

You know nothing. You know only books and what is written in the books. Perhaps those books are written by people just like you. Ninety-nine percent of books are written by other bookish people. In fact, if you read ten books, your mind becomes so full of rubbish that you would like to pour it down into the eleventh book. What else are you going to do with it? You have to unburden yourself.

 

Books go on growing. Each year each language goes on producing thousands and thousands of books. Never before was the danger so great as it is today, because never before was knowledge so easily available to you -- through all kinds of media. Now the book is not the only thing; you can get it from the newspaper, from the magazine, from the radio, from television, and these sources will be becoming more and more available. The danger will become even stronger.

 

I have been a professor in two universities, and I have watched hundreds of professors. That is the most snobbish tribe in the whole world. The professor thinks himself to be a different species altogether -- because he knows. And what does he know? Just words, and words are not experience. You can go on repeating the word love, love, love, millions of times; then too it won't give you the taste of love. But if you read books on love -- and there are thousands of books on love, novels and poetries, stories, treatises, theses -- you can come to know so much about love that you may forget completely that you have never loved, that you don't know what love is all about... and you know all about love that is written in the books.

 

So the third thing is to beware of knowledge, to be so alert that whenever you want, you can put your knowledge aside and it will not block your vision. It will not come between you and reality. You have to go to reality utterly naked. But if there are so many books between you and reality, then whatsoever you see will not be the real. It will be distorted by your books in so many ways, by the time it reaches you it may have no connection at all with the reality.

 

The fourth thing... I will not say "pray" because there is no God to pray to. I cannot say, like all the religions, that prayer will make you religious; it will give you a bogus religiousness. So in my religion the word prayer has to be completely dropped. God is not there, hence talking to the empty sky is utterly foolish. The danger is, you may start hearing voices from the sky; then you have gone beyond the limit of normality. Then you are abnormal. Then you are no more capable of doing something, you will need psychiatric treatment. So before that happens -- before God answers you -- please don't ask. That is within your power, not to ask, not to pray. God cannot force you to pray and to ask. If you pray and ask and you insist, he may answer -- that is the danger. And once you hear the answer, then you are not going to listen to anybody. Then you have to be forced to go for psychiatric treatment, otherwise you are going insane.

 

My word for prayer is love. Forget the word prayer, replace it with love.

 

Love is not for some invisible God. Love is for the visible -- human beings, animals, trees, oceans, mountains. Spread your wings of love as far and wide as you can.

 

And remember, love needs no belief system. Even the atheist loves. Even the communist loves. Even the materialist loves. So love is something intrinsic to you -- nothing imposed from outside, that only a Christian can love, or a Hindu can love -- it is your human potential. And I would like you to depend on your human potential rather than these bogus conditionings of Christian, Jewish, Hindu.... You don't bring them with you, but love you bring with you; it is part and parcel of your being. Love without any inhibition, without any taboos.

 

All these religions have tabooed love. You can understand their strategy. The strategy is that if your love is tabooed, then your energy of love will start moving towards prayer. That's a simple way: you block the passage of love, it will find some other way. Now you have blocked it from reaching to the real, it will try to reach to the unreal. You have blocked the human possibility; now it will try something imaginary, hallucinatory.

 

All the religions are against love because that is the danger: if a man moves into love he may not bother about the church and the temple and the mosque and the priest. Why should he bother? He may not think at all of prayer because he knows something more substantial, something more nourishing. He knows something more existential, why should he go into dreams?

 

Just see it this way: fast one day, and next morning remember what you dreamed. You will certainly dream of food, a feast -- it's absolutely certain. Just fast one day and you will dream in the night. What happened? You dropped the real but your whole being wants it. If you drop the real, then the only way possible is to have the substitute, the unreal. Whatever you dream, keep a check on it: that dream indicates what you are missing in reality. A man who lives in reality, his dreams start disappearing.

 

There is nothing for him to dream. By the time he goes to sleep he is finished with the work of the day. He is finished, he has no hangover that moves into dreams.

 

Sigmund Freud, Jung, Adler -- all these people have been working on dreams. They should have looked at least into one person's life where dreams have disappeared, and that would have given them the clue. But these people are just as stupid as you are. Freud was so much afraid of ghosts that you cannot believe it. You are not that afraid of ghosts.

 

Jung was thrown out of the psychoanalytic movement for the simple reason that he believed in ghosts. And one day, when Sigmund Freud and Jung were sitting in Freud's sitting room, Jung started talking about ghosts. He was very interested in ghosts. Just as he started talking about ghosts there was a great explosion in the cupboard. Freud fell from his seat, and he said, "I have told you again and again: talk of the devil and he is there -- but you don't listen." Even Jung was shaken. They opened the cupboard; there was nothing. How come so much noise, as if a bomb had exploded? He closed the cupboard and they sat again. Again they started talking about the ghost, because how can you stop so suddenly after such an experience? And again there was an explosion! And that was the end. After that, Freud never saw Jung.

 

Freud was so afraid of death that you could not talk about death. His disciples were made aware, particularly the new ones, never to mention the word death. Twice it had happened, people had mentioned something about death and he fell on the ground in a fit, he became unconscious. He was so much afraid of death, even the word death was enough to make him unconscious. And these people are giving you psychoanalysis, these are your great scientists of the mind!

 

Jung was afraid of dead bodies. And this is the natural law: whatsoever you are afraid of you are fascinated by too. So he wanted to go to Egypt to see the ancient mummies, those dead bodies which have been preserved in the pyramids and now are in the museums of Egypt. He wanted to go many times. The tickets were booked, sometimes he even reached the airport, but became nervous, so nervous, so feverish, that he came back again -- canceled the trip. He never managed to reach Egypt. But he tried a dozen times, and always he became nervous. Just the idea of seeing a three, four, five thousand year old dead body and something inside him just freaked out.

 

These people have not known a single person whose dreams have disappeared. For example, I cannot dream even if I want to; there is no way. I have tried and failed. I have tried many ways, invented them because there is no book which says how to create dreams, so I invented my own ways. I will go into sleep thinking of something, visualizing something, so that, as I am going into sleep, whatsoever I am visualizing may remain in the sleep and it will become a dream. But as sleep comes, what I was visualizing disappears. Sleep is there, but what I was visualizing is not there.

 

If you live your real life authentically, sincerely, totally, dreams are finished. If you love, you will never think of prayer because you know the real thing -- so why should you go after the pseudo? And all these religions were aware of that: stop the real so you have to go to the pseudo.

 

The fifth thing I would like to say to you: Live moment to moment. Go on dying every moment to the past. It is finished. There is no need even to label it good or bad. The only thing to know is: it is finished, it is no more. It is going to be no more... gone and gone forever; now why waste time about it?

 

Never think of the past, because you are wasting the present, which is the only real thing in your hand. And never think of the future, because nobody knows how tomorrow is going to be, what tomorrow is going to be, how it is going to turn out, where you are going to land -- you cannot imagine.

 

Do you think about what happened to our commune? Had you ever thought that we were going to land up in Oregon, in America? I don't think anybody, howsoever dreaming and imaginary and hallucinatory, had thought of Oregon. But we landed here. This goes on happening every day -- you don't take note of it -- that yesterday you wasted so much time thinking for this day, and it has not turned out to be according to your ideas and your plans and this and that. And now you are worried why you wasted that time -- again you are wasting it.

 

Remain in the moment, true to the moment, utterly herenow, as if there has been no yesterday and there is going to be no tomorrow -- only then can you be herenow totally.

 

And that totality of being in the present joins you with existence, because existence knows no past, no future. It is always herenow.

 

Existence knows only one tense, that is the present tense. It is language which creates three tenses, and creates three thousand tensions in your mind. Existence knows only one tense, and that is present: and it is not a tension at all, it is utterly relaxing. When you are totally here, no yesterdays pulling you back and no tomorrows pulling you somewhere else, you are relaxed.

 

To me, to be in the moment is meditation, to be utterly in the moment. And then it is so beautiful, so fragrant, so fresh. It never gets old. It never goes anywhere.

 

It is we who come and pass; existence remains as it is. It is not time that passes, it is we who come and pass. But it is a fallacy: rather than seeing that we are passing, we have created a great invention, the clock -- time passes.

 

Just think, if there is no man on the earth will there be any time passing? Things will be all there, the ocean will still be coming to the beach, crashing its waves on the rocks. The sun will rise, the sun will set, but there will be no morning, there will be no evening. There will be no time as such. Time is a mind invention, and basically time can exist only with yesterdays and tomorrows; the present moment is not part of time.

 

When you are simply here, just now, there is no time. You are breathing, you are alive, you are feeling, you are open to everything that is happening all around.

 

When your every moment starts becoming meditation, you are religious.

 

... So these five requests for you.

 

-Osho, “From Unconciousness to Consciousness, #28”

 

 

 

Question 1

Beloved Osho,

Moses gave us ten commandments, but you have spoken only about six requests; will you please complete the list to make it ten?

 

 

It seems I will never be able to learn arithmetic. Perhaps it is too late to. I was thinking I had given you only five requests, but if I have given six then certainly I have to complete the list to make it ten. Why does ten appear to be complete? There is a reason behind it. Man started to count on his fingers, and because he has ten fingers, ten gives a sense of completion. Five would have been better; not as complete as ten, but not as incomplete as six.

 

The sixth request. All the religions of the world, without exception, have given man ideals which are superhuman. They satisfy the ego. You would like to be a superhuman being, but you are meant only to be a human being. Even if the rose wants to become a lotus, the desire is going to be a tremendous frustration, because the potential of the rose is to be a rose. How can it be a lotus?

 

But all the religions, in every possible way, have been giving you ideals far above humanity. The only result is that trying to be superhuman, you miss being human. Rather than reaching the superhuman level, making that stupid effort you fall below the human level itself -- you become subhuman.

 

It will be significant to remember Friedrich Nietzsche, and his idea of superman. Adolf Hitler got the idea from Friedrich Nietzsche, and he was trying, in his own way, to create a whole race of supermen. And what he created was just the opposite. He created the lowest kind of human beings -- but in the name of superman. Friedrich Nietzsche is far more responsible than anybody else for bringing humanity to such a crisis. Adolf Hitler and people like him are just pygmies; but Nietzsche is a giant. His whole life he was propagating the idea of superman.

 

He has the support of Charles Darwin, and his logic looks simple, accurate, appealing. He says, "Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution proves that one day a small bunch of monkeys turned into human beings The mass of course are still monkeys, but a small group became man." This must have happened millions of years ago -- if it happened at all. There is no certainty about it. Scientists are no longer agreeing with Charles Darwin any more, because if a few monkeys turned into human beings, why, for millions of years, are other monkeys not turning into human beings? At least a few of them, once in a while, should turn into human beings. But monkeys are monkeys.

 

We have found ancient skeletons of monkeys; they are the same as the modern monkey -- there is no evolution. The same is true about man. The ancientmost skeletons found in Peking, China, are almost exactly the same as you are -- nothing much has changed. There seems to be no evolution. Perhaps we have more things, more technology, a much more advanced standard of living, but man himself -- he may be flying in the airplane or in a rocket -- the human being is just the same as he was when he was driving a bullock cart.

 

Perhaps, rather than evolving, he has lost many qualities, because when man was a hunter he had tremendous strength. He needed it. He was fighting without any weapons, wrestling with tigers and lions, naked. The modern man is no comparison to him. His life was a tremendous struggle. We could not survive that life. We have lost that strength, the muscles, perhaps even the will. If such a situation arises again many of us would rather commit suicide than live naked in the jungles and fight with animals. And you will find you are the weakest animal on the whole earth. Even a dog can prove the fact, and the dog is no longer part of jungle life. He is a tamed animal. He has weakened with you... otherwise he is a cousin of wolves. He cannot fight with the wolves, but with a man... he can easily kill you without any difficulty.

 

In fact, why did man have to invent swords and guns and bayonets? It is just to substitute for the strength that is naturally missing. What the lion can do with his teeth, you cannot do. What the lion can do with his nails, you cannot do. You have to find substitutes which are stronger than the lion's nails, his teeth. And you would love to fight from a distance -- hence man invented arrows, bullets. These are ways to fight from a distance, because to be close, even with the bayonet in your hand you may become nervous. Just seeing the lion and hearing a lion's roar, you may forget all about the bayonet -- you may be no more yourself. From a distance, sitting on the top of a tree, absolutely protected -- the lion cannot reach there -- you can shoot the lion.

 

What evolution has happened? But Friedrich Nietzsche has based his whole idea on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. He said, "The most beautiful scene in my life happened one day when I was sitting in my garden and a battalion of soldiers passed by on the street: the sound of their boots falling in harmony, their bayonets shining in the morning sun...." Nietzsche said, "I have never seen such a beautiful thing in my whole life." He does not talk about the sunset, nor about the sunrise, nor about the flowers, nor about a bird on the wing -- but soldiers. The sound of their boots is far more musical than any Beethoven or Mozart. The shining of their bayonets in the morning sun is more glorious to him than the sun itself. The morning may have been full of flowers and birds, but that has no appeal to him. The soldier is going to be the superman.

 

This idea gets into the idiotic mind of Adolf Hitler. It is very difficult to put ideas into idiots' minds, but once you put them in you cannot take them out. That is impossible. They will just do it; and he did it -- the second world war was the result. You may not have thought on these lines, that it was a by-product of the philosophy of superman.

 

George Bernard Shaw was continuously describing the superman, as if just to be human is something ugly, something obnoxious, something that we should be ashamed of. But Bernard Shaw was not in any way original in this philosophy. All the religions have been doing this for centuries, telling you that you have to go beyond yourself. As you are, you are bound towards hell. Unless you transcend yourself there is no possibility of your being redeemed, saved.

 

Shri Aurobindo, one of the great philosophers of contemporary India, was also full of the same bullshit -- superman! "The time has come for superman to arrive." And he was preparing the ground for the superman to arrive. Aurobindo has died; the superman has not arrived. The superman is never going to arrive, it is a fiction. It is a fiction created by the priest who wants to condemn you. A comparison is needed, otherwise condemnation is impossible. Something higher, superior, has to be invented, so that you can be compared against it -- and reduced to ashes.

 

I would like you to remember my seventh request: Accept with great joy your being human.

 

Destroy all the ideals that have been created to condemn you. Before they destroy you, you destroy them. They have already done enough harm to humanity. Millions of people have lived under the burden of those ideals, crushed, feeling guilty, like worms.

 

Jainas say that the superman has certain qualities -- their tirthankaras, their twenty-four supermen, had already achieved that state. I say to you, nobody has achieved it, because those qualities cannot be fulfilled by any human being. When you hear those qualities you will understand why I am so certain.... "The superman does not perspire." It is impossible for any human being not to perspire unless he is made of plastic; only plastic does not perspire.

 

But a real human body has a specific purpose for perspiration; it is not for nothing. It is a natural way of giving your body a constant temperature. So when you move in the heat, and it is hot, your body starts perspiring. It is a natural method of air conditioning. The body starts oozing its stored water so that the heat is used, not against your body, but in evaporating the water that the body has released, and your body remains intact, keeps its temperature the same.

 

That perspiration was absolutely necessary. If you had not perspired you would have had a great fever immediately. And the line between your temperature and the temperature where your body stops living is not very big; it is only twelve degrees. If ninety-eight degrees is your natural temperature, at a hundred and ten you are gone. The distance is not very great; death is always close at hand. Perspiring, you prevent your body getting hotter, because the heat starts functioning on the water that you are releasing, starts evaporating it. It gets involved in some other work, leaving your body intact. It is a natural system.

 

The Jainas say their supermen, their tirthankaras, do not defecate, do not urinate. Because these are ordinary human things, animal-like, how can a man like Mahavira...? You cannot imagine Mahavira sitting on the toilet. At least Jainas cannot imagine it -- perhaps you can. Being with me you are almost spoiled; but Jainas cannot imagine Mahavira sitting on the toilet seat. Impossible! What will he sit there for? These are all stupid ideas, but for twenty-five centuries Jainas have been carrying these ideas.

 

Jesus is a superman. He walks on water. I heard of one American Christian who was visiting the holy land. He went to see Lake Galilee where it is thought that Jesus supposedly walked on water. Seeing an American, the boatman was very happy. He asked the American, "Would you like to have a tour around the lake? This is the lake where our lord Jesus Christ used to walk on water."

 

The American, being an American, said, "First things first. How much is it going to cost?"

 

The boatman said, "Not much, just twenty-five dollars, the whole trip."

 

The American said, "Now I know why our lord used to walk. I am not interested in this round trip. But one thing is now clear to me: why he used to walk on water. Even I cannot afford twenty-five dollars for this small lake, how would that poor man have been able to afford it?"

 

Jesus transforms stones into bread, transforms water into wine, raises the dead back to life. These are the qualities of a superman, and all these things are simply fictitious. None of them has ever happened. Jesus has neither walked on water, nor has he transformed the stones into bread, nor the water into wine, nor has he raised the dead back to life. If he had done all these things, then it is the responsibility of the pope to do a few things just as an example. There is no need to transform a big rock, just a small rock... and you represent him, and he will take care of you. Your failure is his failure.

 

But nobody thinks that if he was capable of transforming stones into bread, then why has the whole Middle East lived in such poverty? That one man was enough: he would have transformed everything. If bread is possible out of a stone, then what was the difficulty in transforming the stone into a diamond? If water can become wine, then why not make the whole ocean wine? If you know the secret of how to transform even a single drop of water into wine, you know the whole secret of transforming all the water of the whole earth into wine.

 

And if he was able to raise dead people, then why only Lazarus? So many people must have died while he was here. The story with Lazarus seems to be tricky. That man seems to be pretending to be dead. He is not dead; it is just a made-up miracle. It can be done very easily; in India it is done so many times that we know how it is done. Just one man has to pretend that he is dead, and that needs only a little training of keeping your breath neither out nor in.

 

When you take the breath in, then the body naturally wants to throw it out when it is used, so that fresh air can enter. When you have taken its oxygen, absorbed it, that breath is useless; not only useless, it is dangerous because now only carbon dioxide is left. You have to throw it out quickly. So it is not something against you -- that the breath is trying to struggle to get out -- it is for you. It is your bodily mechanism. Your whole chemistry depends on it; once oxygen has been taken by your blood cells, the air has to be thrown out immediately, as quickly as possible, and when you throw the air out.... Your need for oxygen is constant.

 

You are not aware of it, but your need for oxygen is constant. You are not only taking oxygen from your nose, you are taking it from every small hole in your skin, all over the body. If your whole body is painted so thickly that all the holes are closed and only your nose is left open, you will die within three hours. More than that you cannot survive.

 

Then you will know that the whole body was continuously taking oxygen on its own. It is breathing. Those holes in your skin are not just for nothing. When it is needed they throw the water out: that is perspiration. Otherwise they are constantly absorbing the air. So when you breathe out, the immediate need of the body is to breathe in again, because your blood cells are continuously running around the body, sending oxygen wherever it is needed, and they are coming back empty to the heart, where they want to be refilled. To refill them you have to take in fresh air.

 

Now, the only way to keep your breath in an unmoving state needs a certain yoga exercise in which you learn exactly the middle point, when the breath is neither in nor out -- or half in, half out. At that exact point there is a certain equilibrium attained, and for a few minutes you can remain alive without breathing. Jesus had been to India. He had been traveling in Egypt, in India, In Ladakh, and perhaps in Tibet too. He must have learned the simple technique somewhere. There are people still in India who can do it, not only for hours, but for days -- in small villages, you need not go to the Himalayas to find them.

 

In my own village, in my childhood, I have seen, three times, three different people going into a grave and being covered by mud completely -- a six foot deep grave. It is impossible to conceive that six feet under the earth they will be able to breathe. For seven days, for fifteen days, and the last time I saw it, for twenty-one days.... After twenty-one days you take away the mud. The man is found almost white, as if dead, not breathing.

 

I was there. I had taken a mirror with me, because you may not be able to detect the breath just with your hand, but if you put the mirror near the nose, if any breath is going in and out the mirror will immediately give you the indication. But there was no pulse. Even doctors were present -- there was no pulse, there was no breath. And the man had said, "When you take me out, do this procedure exactly: put me into a certain position, and don't do anything on your own -- just put me into a certain position." So he had to be put in a certain position, and within five, seven minutes he was breathing. Slowly his paleness disappeared, his pulse was back, his heart was beating.

 

This Lazarus was not dead. And he was a close friend and disciple of Jesus. It was a simple game, because the Jews were asking, "Can you raise the dead? If you can raise the dead, then you are a messiah, then you are a superman." This is all managed. And remember, no Jewish source mentions it. It is such a big event -- a dead man coming back to life -- do you think it is not news? Not a single Jewish source mentions it even, that something like that is told about Jesus. They don't mention even the name of Jesus.

 

These stories either have been invented later on or were being managed just to prove that he was a superman. First you put certain requirements for who is a superman, then people start proving that they are one. So either you get charlatans, deceivers, cheats, or if they are sincere, honest people, they start feeling that they are so low they are not even worthy to call themselves human; they are sinners. Their guilt is so heavy because they cannot do anything that a superman is supposed to do.

 

About Gautam Buddha it is said that whenever he would pass through a forest, the trees would start suddenly growing green leaves -- even if it was not the season for them. Flowers would bloom -- even if it was not the season for them. Buddhists say that is the sign of a superman. Even trees... just his vibe, and even trees forget their natural law, that it is not time to blossom. It may be fall, but because Buddha comes it turns into spring. Wherever Buddha goes it is spring. Wherever he is, trees are blossoming. This is not true. This is absurd, because no Jaina sources, which are contemporary sources, mention it, and it would have been such a great event. Buddha walked for forty years, passed through forests thousands of times; the whole country must have been agog, that this man... but no Jaina sources even mention it, no Hindu sources even mention it.

 

Buddhist sources cannot be believed. They were written by Buddhists, and that too after Buddha's death. Three hundred years had passed when the first congregation met to write down everything, so that in future people would know and remember that there had been a man like Gautama the Buddha. They were trying their best to prove him the superman -- but their idea of superman. He does not walk on water, he perspires -- those are not Buddhist criteria, so there is no problem. And even if he could transform water into wine, I don't think Buddha would do that; he would do just the opposite, would turn the wine into water -- that would be the miracle.

 

But everybody has his idea of superman. And all the religions have been imposing this idea of superman. And they all have been telling you that if you are virtuous, if you do whatsoever is prescribed by the scriptures, if you follow faithfully, this is going to happen to you too. They have given you an ideal which you cannot fulfill, hence you will be guilty. You will feel unworthy, good for nothing, and your whole energy, which could have helped you to become an authentic human being, will be wasted in these foolish things.

 

So my seventh request is: Be just an authentic human being.

 

In existence there is no hierarchy.

 

The smallest blade of grass has an equal value to the greatest star in the sky.

 

In existence there is no hierarchy, nobody is lower, nobody is higher. Everybody is just himself. Some tree is tall, some tree is not tall. That does not mean that the tall tree is greater, superior, and the small tree is not greater, not superior. No, in nature there is no hierarchy. The small tree has the potential of being a small tree. It has brought its potential to its completion; it is happy, blissful. It is not comparing itself with the tall tree. And the tall tree is not looking downwards with the eyes of a president looking at the ordinary people or a prime minister looking at the ordinary people. The tall tree is just a tall tree. It has fulfilled its potential. Both have done exactly the same; whatsoever was their potential, they have brought it to fulfillment... and fulfillment is bliss. What you fulfill does not matter.

 

Fulfillment of your potential is bliss.

 

So remember, there is no hierarchy; there is nobody above you, there is nobody below you. A dog is a dog, authentically a dog. Yes, you can distort the dog. People have been doing that. To the tamed animals they have been doing the same as their so-called saints are doing to them.

 

You are tamed animals to your saints. So they are trying to cut you according to their image -- lengthen you somewhere, stretch your hands and cut your legs. They have a certain idea; you have to fit into the idea. The idea is not for you, you are for the idea. And the same you go on doing with dogs, cats and other animals -- poor animals who somehow are caught in your traps. So whatsoever you say they have to do it. Of course the training needs torture. You see in the circus an elephant dancing. Now, for an elephant to dance... just to raise his leg is so heavy. You need a crane to raise one leg, one crane to raise another leg, another crane... the cranes will have to create the dance. But how do they manage in the circuses? Torture -- simple torture.

 

They put hot, burning hot, iron plates and force the elephant to walk on them. One plate is hot, one is cool. Naturally on the hot plate he raises his leg; on the cool one he keeps it down. On the next step it is reversed -- this side is cool, that side is hot, so he puts this leg down and raises that leg. It takes tears. Each plate has a different color; and elephants are wise people, very wise, so they start learning that the red tile, or the red plate is hot, the green plate is cool. Once they get the idea and the association, then you simply use red and green plates. Nothing is hot, both are cool, but the elephant has become conditioned: on the red he will raise his leg without even bothering about whether now the plate or the tile is hot or not -- it doesn't matter. And they teach them to sit on stools. An elephant sitting on a stool.... But you only see the outcome of a long, torturous training. It is the same as you do with dogs, with cats, and in the circus they do with all other animals. Your so-called religions have been doing the same with you.

 

They have made the whole of humanity into a circus... all kinds of things. The motivation is that you will become superhuman. And the superman does not die. Once you get beyond your humanity... which, according to the Christians, is sin; to be human is sin, to be born as a human is sin.

 

I wonder many times... because I am a little crazy so I wonder about strange things which nobody else wonders about. Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of Eden, but all these animals, birds, millions of species, how did they come out of the garden of Eden? It is okay that Adam and Eve disobeyed, followed the idea of the devil; they committed the original sin. But what about the whole animal kingdom? Have they also committed the original sin? Has the devil managed to provoke them to revolt too? It's strange that no Jew, no Christian philosopher, theologian, scholar has even asked, "From where have all these animals come? And why?" Man is born in sin. Certainly animals are not born in sin; so if anybody is higher, animals are higher than you. This much mathematics I can manage.

 

So the seventh request, remember: Accept your humanity with joy, as a gift of existence -- not that you are expelled from the garden of Eden, not that it is a punishment, not that you have to repent.

 

Jesus goes on saying, "Repent! Repent!" For what? Because Adam and Eve ate an apple? And we have to repent for it? Now, my doctor, Devaraj, does not allow me, otherwise my whole life I have been eating apples -- not one, at least six per day. That was my main diet. If anybody has committed the original sin, I am here. That poor Adam and Eve... just one apple. And they must have eaten half and half; perhaps the serpent also had some share in it. I don't know, because the people who create these stories don't give any clue. Just a small fragment and they think it is enough.

 

We are still in the garden of Eden. That's what I want you to understand. This existence is the garden of Eden, there is no other garden of Eden. We are already in it. And how can one be expelled from existence? Just look at the absurdity of the idea. Even if God wants to, he cannot expel anybody from existence. Where will he expel him to? Wherever he expels him to, it will be existence still -- and his creation still. And whatsoever God creates must be holy -- or does he also create unholy things? So if he expels you, you will still be walking on the holy earth, the holy planet.

 

There is no point in the story. It is just to keep you tethered to the idea that unless you undo what Adam has done, you will never rise above your humanity. And what has Adam done? He has disobeyed. Rather than listening to God, he listened to the devil. Of course, the devil was more logical, more appealing, more convincing.

 

This God, the God of this story, seems to have no guts. If the devil had convinced them, he could have argued with them. That would have been far more gentlemanly than driving them out in a Ford car. Why insult them? And it must have been a T-model Ford car, the ancientmost, which had no reverse gear. So Adam and Eve go on and on, but they cannot reverse. The idea of the reverse gear came later on. When Ford tried to go back home and found that it took so long -- you had to go around the whole town, and then go back home; if you had missed by just one step, again you had to go around the whole town -- that gave him the idea of the reverse gear. But the model that God used, it was before this idea that Ford got; it had no reverse gear.

 

Why was he angry? And if he was angry, he should have been angry at the serpent, at the devil -- not at these innocent people. But in the story the serpent still lives in the garden of Eden. The story says nothing about the serpent. What happened? He still lives there. And he must be seducing other people to eat the apple. It seems he is an agent of God.

 

To implant the idea that you are born in original sin, different methods have been used by different religions, but they have to make it certain that you are born in sin. That's why Jesus is born out of a virgin girl, because to be born out of sex is to be born out of sin. Sex is sin.

 

Now, I again go on wondering how the holy ghost made the virgin Mary pregnant. I don't think he used artificial insemination. In what way did the poor woman become pregnant? But the Christians have to make poor Jesus a bastard, just to keep him away from the sin of sex. Everybody else is born out of sex, is born out of sin -- only Jesus is not born that way. Jesus is special.

 

Strange ways these people have been using. In different religions different methods are used. For example, how was Buddha born? His mother was pregnant, nine months pregnant. Any day, today or tomorrow she was going to give birth, and she said she would like to visit her mother's palace. She was a daughter of a neighboring king, and the queen of another king, Gautam Siddartha's father.

 

Now, it is still a custom in India, in the villages, that if a pregnant woman asks for something, she should not be refused. And I can see its psychology. It is solid wisdom. She should not be put into a negative mood, she should remain in a positive mood. She asked to go and see her mother and father. Shudhodhana, the father of Buddha, was worried because this was not the right time for her to travel, but her wish could not be denied. So immediately a chariot was called, and immediately she was sent.

 

And just on the way, when she was resting under a saal tree.... It is a beautiful tree with very thick shade. Even in the hot sun, under a saal tree it is cool. To avoid the hot sun which was just overhead, she waited under the saal tree. And the story is: while she was walking towards the saal tree, standing, she gave birth to Gautam Buddha. Perhaps no woman ever has given birth standing. That is a strange posture. A woman is in such pain that to be standing....

 

But that is nothing; the story, the real story is coming now. Buddha was born standing! Ordinarily, the head comes first out of the mother's womb. It is very rare, a very few idiots try the other way, they bring their legs first. Very few idiots... otherwise the natural way is to bring the head first. But Buddha was born with his legs first -- standing! The mother was standing, Buddha was standing -- but wait... he walked seven steps! Gautam Buddha walked seven steps. The first thing he did, he walked seven steps; and the second thing he did, he declared, "I am the suprememost buddha in the world." Superman! Now how can you manage it? You can't, for the simple reason that you are already born. Only in the next life can you try, but that too depends on the woman, whether she goes to her mother's palace, stops by a saal tree or not....

 

Why these foolish stories? Just to make the person special, different from you. It is just to humiliate you. It is disgusting! How humanity has been insulted by all the religions! It is time that people say, "Stop all this nonsense. There is no superman, and there has never been one -- we are all human beings. And these stories are all imaginary hocus pocus."

 

The eighth request.... All the religions have been teaching you to fight against nature. Whatsoever is natural is condemned. The religions say that you have to manage to do something unnatural, only then can you get out of the imprisonment of biology, physiology, psychology, all the walls that surround you. But if you go on in harmony with your body, with your mind, with your heart, then the religions say you will never be able to go beyond you. That's where I oppose all the religions. They have put a poisonous seed in your being, so you live in the body, but you don't love your body.

 

The body serves you for seventy, eighty, ninety, even a hundred years, and there is no other mechanism that science has been able to invent which can be compared to the body. Its complexities, its miracles that it goes on doing for you... and you don't even say thank you. You treat your body as your enemy, and your body is your friend.

 

It takes care of you in every possible way, while you are awake, while you are asleep. Even in sleep it goes on taking care of you. When you are asleep and a spider starts moving on your leg, your leg throws it away without bothering you. The leg has a small brain of its own. So for small matters there is no need to go to the central system, to go to the brain -- that much the leg can do. A mosquito is biting you, your hands move it or kill it, and your sleep is not disturbed. Even while you are asleep your body is continuously protecting you, and doing things which are not generally supposed. The hand is not supposed to have a brain, but certainly it has something which can only be called a very small brain. Perhaps every cell of your body has a small brain in it. And there are millions of cells in your body, millions of small brains, moving around, continuously taking care.

 

You go on eating all kinds of things without bothering what happens when you swallow them. You don't ask the body whether its mechanism, its chemistry, will be able to digest what you are eating. But somehow your inner chemistry goes on working for almost a century. It has an automatic system of replacing parts which have gone wrong. It goes on throwing them out, creating new parts; and you have to do nothing about it, it goes on happening on its own. The body has a certain wisdom of its own.

 

And the religions say the body is your enemy, you have to starve it, you have to hit it hard, because unless you starve it, torture it, how are you going to be free of it? The only way to be free of it is to cut all attachments to it. They teach you hatred for your body, and this is something so dangerous. The very idea turns your greatest friend into your greatest enemy.

 

These religions go on saying to you, "You have to be always fighting, you have to move against the current. Don't listen to the body -- whatever it says, do just the opposite." Jainism says, "The body is hungry, let it be hungry. You starve it, it needs that treatment." It simply serves you without any payment from your side, no salary, no facilities, and Jainism says go against it. When it wants to fall asleep, try to remain awake.

 

Gurdjieff was doing the same thing in this twentieth century. It certainly gives you a great ego power. When the body wants food, you say no. "No" has great power in it. You are the master. You reduce the body to a slave -- not only to a slave, you force the body to keep its mouth shut: "Whatsoever I decide is going to be done; you are not to interfere." Gurdjieff used to do just the opposite of what Jainism does. Jainism starves you -- but the method is the same and the result is the same; Gurdjieff used to force his disciples to go on eating. When the body was saying no, he would say, "Go on...." Every night, that was the peak point for Gurdjieff's disciples.

 

He was a great cook, and as far as exotic foods are concerned he was incomparable, but that does not make him a religious man. He used to cook strange foods which you have never eaten, your body is absolutely unacquainted with how to absorb them, what kind of ingredients he is putting in those foods! And then he used to stand there, forcing everybody; nobody could say no to the master. The body was in revolt but he would go on forcing them to eat, and then the drinking would begin. Then he would force you to drink. Soon, by the middle of the night.... The ritual used to continue from three to six hours, it was not a small affair. In the middle of the night, in that whole place only Gurdjieff was awake. All the others were unconscious, vomiting, everybody falling, in every kind of posture. It was a dead place, ugly.

 

What was the purpose? The purpose was the same: to teach you how to fight the body. The old disciples would slowly start getting accustomed to it. They would not vomit, although they had eaten so much that it was coming to their throats, but they would not vomit. Now they had controlled it enough. The disciples that had followed him from Russia were the oldest group. They would drink as much wine as he wanted and they would not fall unconscious. That gave great power -- that you are no longer a slave of the body, you are a master of the body. It is the same power that the Jaina monks get from fasting for months together. The same ego is satisfied.

 

My eighth request to you is: Do not fight with your body.

 

It is not your foe, it is your friend. It is a gift of nature to you. It is part of nature. It is joined with nature in every possible way. You are bridged not only with breathing; with sunrays you are bridged, with the fragrance of flowers you are bridged, with the moonlight you are bridged. You are bridged from everywhere; you are not a separate island. Drop that idea. You are part of this whole continent, and yet... it has given you an individuality. This is what I call a miracle.

 

You are part and parcel of existence, yet you have an individuality. Existence has done a miracle, has made possible something impossible.

 

So being in harmony with your body, you will be in harmony with nature, with existence. So instead of going against the current, go with the current. Be in a letgo. Allow life to happen. Don't force anything, in any good name. For the sake of some holy book, for the sake of some holy ideal, don't disturb your harmony.

 

Nothing is more valuable than to be harmonious, in accord with the whole.

 

My ninth request....

 

All the religions are agreed upon one point -- that real life begins after death. This life is only a rehearsal, not the real drama. The real drama will happen after death. Here, you are only preparing for the drama. So sacrifice everything to get ready for the drama that is going to happen after death. They teach sacrifice. Sacrifice love, sacrifice life, sacrifice joy, sacrifice everything. The more you sacrifice, the more you will be capable of participating in the drama, the great drama, after death. They have tried to focus your mind on life after death.

 

One man was asking me -- I was in Calcutta, and he was one of the richest men of India, Sahu Shanti Prasad; he had the greatest palace in Calcutta. We were walking in his big garden... because he has, in the middle of Calcutta, at least a hundred acre green garden. The palace once used to belong to the viceroy of India, when Calcutta was the capital. When the capital shifted to New Delhi, the palace was sold. Now the president of India lives in the same kind of palace in New Delhi, with a one hundred acre garden.

 

So we both were walking and he asked me, "I always wanted to ask you what happens after death."

 

I said, "Are you alive or not?"

 

He said, "What kind of question is this? I am alive."

 

I said, "You are alive. Do you know what life is?"

 

He said, "That I cannot answer. Honestly, I don't know."

 

I said, "When you are alive, even then you don't know what life is. How can you know death when you are not dead yet? So wait. While you are alive, try to know life; and soon you will be dead, then in your grave contemplate about death. Nobody will be bothering you. But why are you concerned what happens after death? Why are you not concerned what happens before death? That should be the real concern. When death comes we will face it, we will see it, we will see what it is. I am not dead so how can I say? You will have to ask somebody who is dead what happens. I am alive. I can tell you what life is, and I can tell you how to know what life is."

 

"But," he said, "all the religious teachers I go to listen to talk about death; nobody talks about life."

 

They are not interested in life, in fact; they want you all not to be interested in life. Their business depends on your interest in death. And about death, the most beautiful thing is that you can create any kind of fiction and nobody can argue against it. Neither you can prove it, nor can anybody disprove it. And if you are a believer, then of course all your scriptures are in support of the priest, the monk, the rabbi, and he can quote those scriptures.

 

I would like you to remember: Live, and try to know what life is.

 

Don't be bothered about death, heaven and hell, and this goddammed God. You simply remain with the life that is dancing in you, breathing in you, alive in you. You have to come closer to yourself to know it. Perhaps you are standing too far away from yourself. Your concerns have taken you far away. You have to come back home.

 

So remember that while you are alive it is so precious -- don't miss a single moment. Squeeze the whole juice of it, and that juice will give you the taste of the existential, and that will be a revelation of all that is hidden from you and will remain hidden from you.

 

Respect life, revere life. There is nothing more holy than life, nothing more divine than life. And life does not consist of big things. Those religious fools have been telling you, "Do big things," and life consists of small things. The strategy is clear. They tell you, "Do big things, something great, something that your name will be remembered for afterwards. Do something great." And of course it appeals to the ego. The ego is the agent of the priest. All the churches and all the synagogues and all the temples have only one agent, and that is the ego. They don't use different agencies. There are not other agencies. There is only one agency, and that is the ego -- do something great, something big.

 

I want to tell you, there is nothing big, nothing great. Life consists of very small things. So if you become interested in so-called big things, you will be missing life.

 

Life consists of sipping a cup of tea, of gossiping with a friend; going for a morning walk, not going anywhere in particular, just for a walk, no goal, no end, from any point you can turn back; cooking food for someone you love; cooking food for yourself, because you love your body too; washing your clothes, cleaning the floor, watering the garden... these small things, very small things... saying hello to a stranger, which was not needed at all because there was no question of any business with the stranger.

 

The man who can say hello to a stranger can also say hello to a flower, can also say hello to the tree, can sing a song to the birds. They sing every day and you have not bothered at all that some day you should return the call. Just small things, very small things....

 

And I am not talking about going to the synagogue -- that is a big thing; going to the church -- that is a big thing. Leave all that to fools. There are many. And they also need some kind of engagement, occupation; those synagogues, and churches and temples provide it. But to you, existence, nothing but existence, is the only temple.

 

Nothing but life is the only God I teach you.

 

Respect your life. Out of that respect you will start respecting life in others.

 

Many times I am asked why our commune is vegetarian. Just for a simple reason.... There is no motivation as in Jainism. Their motivation is that if you are vegetarian you will go to heaven; if you are not you will fall into hell. My people are vegetarian not for any motivation. They are not going to cash in on it somewhere after death. They are not putting it in their bank balance in the other life. It is just that if you respect life, you will start finding it difficult even to pluck a flower. You will enjoy the flower, you will love the flower, you can touch the flower, you can kiss the flower -- but plucking it up, you are destroying it and you are hurting the plant, which is as alive as you are.

 

Respect for life, reverence for life, makes my commune vegetarian -- otherwise there is no problem. How can you eat meat? Just for your taste you can go on destroying life? Just the idea is nauseous.

 

How many, Sheela...?

 

"I think I made a mistake yesterday. I counted it wrong."

 

Okay, that's great, so let us go on.

 

Ninth: Be creative.

 

Only a creative person can know what bliss is. Paint, play music, compose poetry, do anything, not for any other purpose, just for your joy, for no other reason. If you can compose poetry just for your own joy, or a few friends may share it; if you can make a beautiful garden, just for the sheer joy of making it, and anybody who passes by may stand for a while and have a look -- that's enough reward.

 

But this is my experience, that only creative people know what bliss is. Those who are not creative cannot know bliss.

 

They can know happiness, and I will have to make the difference clear to you. Happiness is always caused by something: you get a Nobel prize, you are happy; you are rewarded, you are happy; you become the champion of something and you are happy. Something causes it, but it depends on others. The Nobel prize will be decided by the Nobel committee. The gold medal will be decided by the gold medal committee, the university. It depends on others. And if you have been working for this motive -- that you want to attain the Nobel prize and you are writing poetry, novels, just in order to get the Nobel prize -- while you are working, it will be just a drag. There will be no bliss, because your happiness is there, far away, in the hands of the Nobel prize committee. And even if you get the Nobel prize, it is going to be just a momentary thing. How long can you go on bragging about it?

 

George Bernard Shaw got the Nobel prize. He was a very clever man. He used the happiness of getting the Nobel prize the most up to now; he defeated all the Nobel prize winners. First he got the Nobel prize -- the news was all over the world. Then he refused the Nobel prize. Now it was an insult to the country, to the king who heads the Nobel prize committee, to the committee, to the people who have proposed his name. Never before had anybody refused; he started this thing.

 

From all over the world, pressure came upon him. For three days he kept the whole world buzzing: what is going to happen? Every king, every prime minister, every president from every country was wiring and sending messages: "This is not good. This is not gentlemanly. You please accept it, then you can donate it -- but first accept it. Rejecting it is an insult." The third day he relaxed and he accepted it. Again he was even bigger news -- that he had accepted it. Two or three days he waited. As the news was cooling down, he donated it. Again the news became hot, because it is not only a prize, it has money with it too, big money. I think right now it is nearabout two hundred thousand dollars.

 

Again he exploded all over the news media, and after two, three days, when everything was cooling down, he managed to leak out that he had donated it to his own society, the Fabian society. He was the president and he was the only member! And when he was asked, "What is all this?" he said, "Why not use it as much as you can? -- otherwise just for one day you are in the news, and then finished. I carried it on for one month." But it depends on others. Even if you can carry it on for one month, it is going to be finished -- one minute or one month, it doesn't matter.

 

Bliss is something totally different. It is not dependent on anybody. It is the joy of creating something; whether anybody appreciates it or not is irrelevant. You enjoyed it while you were making it -- that's enough, more than enough.

 

And the last, whatsoever the number because now I cannot bother about the numbers. I myself have forgotten, but I have to say the last, so it is complete. Numbers, you can figure out.

 

The last is my most precious request to you, and that is: In existence the most extraordinary thing is to be ordinary.

 

Everybody wants to be extraordinary, that is very ordinary. But to be ordinary and just relax in being ordinary, that is superbly extraordinary. One who can accept his ordinariness without any grudge, any grumbling -- with joy, because this is how the whole existence is -- then nobody can destroy his bliss. Nobody can steal it, nobody can take it away. Then wherever you are you will be in bliss.

 

I was in New Delhi, and after I had spoken a man stood up and asked me, "What do you think about yourself? Will you be going to heaven or hell?"

 

I said, "As far as I know, there are no such things. But if by chance they are there, I can only hope for hell."

 

He said, "What!"

 

I said, "In hell you will find all the colorful people -- ordinary people, but all colorful. In heaven you will find great scholars, theologians, saints, philosophers -- but all serious, all quarreling, all against each other, disputing continuously. It must be a quarrelsome place, where you cannot find a moment of silence. As far as I understand, if God has any intelligence he must have escaped to hell, because that is the only place where nobody is going to argue about stupid, silly things, where people will be simply enjoying, dancing, singing, eating, sleeping, working."

 

I said to him, "To me, the ordinary is the most extraordinary phenomenon in existence."

 

-Osho, “From Unconciousness to Consciousness, #29”